Curse of Chucky (2013)

Movie Info

Still your friend ’til the end!

Nica (Fiona Dourif) and her mother Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle) receive a package in the mail containing a Good Guy doll.  When Sarah is found dead of an apparent suicide, Nica’s sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti), brother-in-law Ian (Brennan Elliot), their nanny Jill (Maitland McConnell), and her niece Alice (Summer H. Howell) come for a visit to help arrange Sarah’s affairs.  Unfortunately, the Good Guy is Chucky and Chucky has plans for Nica’s family.  With ties to his past as Charles Lee Ray, Chucky is back with a vengeance and out to kill!

Directed by Don Mancini, Curse of Chucky is a follow-up to Seed of Chucky from 2004 and the sixth film in the Child’s Play series.  The film was released for download on September 24, 2013 and direct-to-DVD and Blu-Ray on October 8, 2013.  It was met with mixed reviews.

Chucky’s back!

I have loved the Child’s Play series from its onset and the films continue to change.  This film left the comedy of Seed of Chucky behind and returned to the more horrific aspects of the first three films.

The story of Curse of Chucky took a while to get going.  The slow start of the film wasn’t deathless, but it didn’t seem to really have any direction.  It had the basic plot storylines of the original film (Chucky befriends Alice and no one will believe he’s alive), but this becomes monotone and is even mixed with a weird lesbian storyline between the nanny and Alice’s mother.  The story finally gets direction near the end of the film, but it is a bit too little and too late…but it also provides some payoff to fans of the series.

You’re tearing me apart, Sarah!!!

The cast is so-so.  Brad Dourif’s daughter Fiona Dourif plays the paralyzed Nica and is fine in the role, but the story gets distracted by the arrival of her sister and the family.  Brad Dourif returns as Chucky and then appears as Charles Lee Ray in flashbacks (though he looks more like Tommy Wiseau from The Room).  The rest of the cast is pretty weak.  The Danielle Bisutti-Brennan Elliot-Maitland McConnell love triangle does seem to do anything except clog-up the already slow starting storyline.  The movie does have some bonus appearances at the end which do help save the film.

Stick around after the credits for this fun bonus scene!

*****Spoiler Alert***** The film at first appears to be a relaunch with a new Chucky.  There is no mention of the irritating Glenda or Jennifer Tilly’s Tiffany from Seed of Chucky, and Chucky is more childlike.  This is revealed to be make-up and Chucky is the original Chucky…in a great end scene Tiffany (Jennifer Tilly) shows up and reveals that it was all part of Chucky’s revenge on Sarah for turning the police on him (which is where Child’s Play started).  Stick around for a post credit scene (which doesn’t make much sense from the last scene) and you get a bonus scene with the return of the original Child’s Play kid Andy Barclay (Alex Vincent)…it is a fun throwback to the original…but a little too late to help the movie.

Curse of Chucky has its moments, but the first part of the film is a bit too dull for it to be really fun.  I enjoy the fact that it was a bit of an ode to the original series and that it returned to horror, but I would love to see a sequel which was more like the last half-hour of the movie.  Curse of Chucky was followed by Cult of Chucky in 2017.

Related Links:

Child’s Play (1988)

Child’s Play 2 (1990)

Child’s Play 3 (1991)

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Seed of Chucky (2004)

Child’s Play (2019)